Product Development in a Startup

Transcript

1. Paris Founder Institute — 26 Novembre 2014 Ronan Amicel @amicel

   Product Development in a Startup

2. Ronan Amicel 10+ years with startups Flying Sensei @ Pocket

   Sensei Hacker in Residence @ The Family

3. Easy, no?

4. Recipe for Product Success 1. Come up with a killer

   idea 2. Write detailed specs and mockups 3. Hire team or outsource to development shop 4. Get an awesome product!

5. Recipe for Product Success 1. Come up with a killer

   idea 2. Write detailed specs and mockups 3. Hire team or outsource to development shop 4. Get an awesome product! NOT

6. Your Challenges 1. Build the right product 2. Build your

   product right

7. Build the
 Right Product

8. Your Biggest Risk Build something that
 nobody wants

9. Love the Problem,
 not the Solution • Focus on really

   understanding: — The Problem — The Customer • Tools: — Customer Development — Lean Startup ♥︎

10. The Solution is a Path MVP 2 MVP 3 MVP

    1

11. Iterate • Release early – start learning ASAP! • Release

    often – maximize the number of cycles through the loop Build Measure Learn

12. Minimum Viable Product • Minimal is NOT crappy • Focus

    on solving one aspect of the problem for a single group of people • Pick a minimal core set of features • Remove features • Remove more features

13. Source : http://blog.fastmonkeys.com/

14. Build your
 Product Right

15. Culture Team Product

16. Ideal Situation • Collaboration between tech & business • Product

    leadership • Experienced developers

17. Tech-Business Collaboration • Split work in small chunks — Minimum

    Marketable Feature — User Stories • Prioritize backlog based on business value — use Impact Mapping — define goals and metrics

18. Product Leadership • Have someone with strong product sense on

    the team • Translate understanding of customer problems into a great user experience • Making product decisions = saying no

19. Experienced Developers

20. Experienced Developers Bad Developer Sure, I can do it!
 (except

    not)

21. Experienced Developers Bad Developer Sure, I can do it!
 (except

    not) Good Developer Sure, I can do it!

22. Experienced Developers Bad Developer Sure, I can do it!
 (except

    not) Good Developer Sure, I can do it! Experienced Developer Hmm, I can reuse this library

23. Experienced Developers Bad Developer Sure, I can do it!
 (except

    not) Good Developer Sure, I can do it! Experienced Developer Hmm, I can reuse this library Very Experienced Developer Actually, we don’t need this

24. Hiring Good, Available,
 and Cheap?

25. But hiring is tough! • You don’t have much money

    • You don’t have much time • You don’t have much experience • You don’t know many people

26. So, here’s Plan B • Do whatever you can to

    build a crappy throwaway MVP: — learn to code — go to hackathons — hire someone • Get the ball rolling!

27. Typical Problems • The team doesn’t ship • Quality issues

    • New features take longer and longer

28. The Team Doesn’t Ship • Remove non-working and half-finished features,

    find a working core • Aggressively trim the backlog • Start releasing ASAP at least internally (shipping != launching)

29. Quality issues • Managing Quality — Feature vs. experiment —

    Understand technical debt — Unit tests and code review can help

30. Technology

31. Python, Ruby, Node.js ? Use whatever the team
 knows best


    and is more productive with.

32. Tools • Use source control (e.g. git) • Automate deployment

    • Automate tests

33. Wait ! You probably don’t need
 to build anything yet!

34. Low Fidelity MVPs • Interviews (like, talking to people!) •

    Paper prototypes • Mockups (Balsamiq, PowerPoint, KeyNote...) • Landing pages, surveys, videos...

35. Do Things that Don’t Scale • “Concierge” MVP — Solve

    the problem by doing things manually • “Wizard of Oz” MVP — Do things manually behind the curtain (app, website...)

36. Key Takeaways • Love the problem, not the solution •

    Start small and iterate • Balance speed and quality • Don’t build it yet

37. Questions?